Writer Promotion: Spending the Marketing Budget

I have two posts left under How to Self-Publish about promotion. This week I look at fee-based services and next week I’ll discuss having a promotional strategy.

To date, my posts about promotion have largely focused on approaches involving little or no cost, such as invoking the help of family and friends, having a website and blogging and using social media. My last post on reviews did touch on two services that cost money: email blasts promoting price discounts and paid-for reviews. This post picks up on that thread and looks at a few more promotional services self-pubs can buy.

Most people trying to sell a new product or service think about marketing it with a dedicated budget. Self-pub writers, though, are more likely to i) think their books will sell themselves, ii) then realize that they must promote their books, and iii) grudgingly become willing to spend a few bucks on that promotion.

Unfortunately, having arrived at iii), self-pubs will find that spending money on promotion often doesn’t cure poor sales. There simply are too many books published. In addition, it can be hard to know which promotional/marketing/consulting service affected sales. All I can say is that self-pubs should be skeptical about what’s on offer, understand exactly what the value proposition is and ask other writers about their experiences. With all that, here are some ways to eat up the marketing budget.

Facebook Advertising: This social media behemoth makes money, among other things, from selling targeted advertising using the staggering data it has collected about users. Self-pubs could, for example, advertise their books to users in Ontario who like specified authors. When I researched this type of advertising, though, I couldn’t find any evidence that it produced meaningful sales.

Tweets: Of course, self-pubs can promote their own books on a cost-free basis through their Twitter accounts. “Buy my book” tweets irritate readers, though, so tweets that are more subtle and engaging are best. However, services exist that have built up large numbers of Twitter followers and that, for a fee, will blast their followers with book recommendations. Just as irritating if you ask me.

Giveaways/Contests: Self-pubs can arrange to give away copies of their books on sites like Goodreads as well as have giveaways and contests through Facebook. The idea is to create profile and the possibility of reviews to generate sales. Self-pubs shouldn’t underestimate the costs of getting print copies of books made and delivered to interested readers, or of sending twenty-five tote bags to their contest winners.

Blog Tours: In theory, a self-pub could try to organize a traditional book tour for his new book. However, even assuming book stores would agree to host the writer, the costs could be significant. An alternative is blog tours, in which a self-pub searches out a series of blog writers who agree to host content like a Q&A, a video, a blog post and so on. These tours take a lot of organization, so some services set up the tours for a fee. While I haven’t tried a blog tour, I know writers who have and thought they obtained good exposure. As usual, it would be useful to know if the exposure translates into sales.

Old-School Advertising: A self-pub writer could buy a radio ad or a poster spot on the subway or have his book featured in a movie. A really famous writer with lots of money at least.

PR: When I published The Case for Killing, I thought of hiring a public relations firm. I couldn’t find any affordable, experienced firms.